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We Won The Cup!!!

FA Cup Champions!

Yes, we did! And what a glorious way to do it! And, yes, John Brewin, Dale Johnson and all those Arsenal haters down at ESPNFC don’t even know what they’re talking about. Yes, I’ll go light on them ‘cos… We Won The Cup!!!

Ok, let’s track back a little. I know it’s been a while I’ve been here but I won’t dwell on all that. Will I make up for lost time? I don’t think so, but I hope to put up two posts back to back and this is the first. Maybe sometime, someday, I’ll try to catch up with everything and probably run posts every single day for one month (that’ll be awesome!), but not at this time. There’s so much to write (when I eventually get to settle down and think, which is actually getting harder to do these days) and I hope to vent sometime. Presently, I’m not happy with my output at work and it’s getting plainer that enthusiasm alone doesn’t cut it in the real world. Efforts aren’t producing desired results and I’m just getting a little flustered. That said, I just feel like I should take a short break to get on here and cool off a bit before I go back on hiatus again. I might probably find a way past my present conundrum by the time I’m done.

Now that I’ve digressed seriously from the issue at hand (actually, I felt that last paragraph was quite important, even for me), let’s get back to the story of the day, shall we? Yea. So, we won the cup. Big deal. I mean, BIG DEAL!!! This is Arsenal! Trophyless Arsenal! Perennial Fourth Placers! Nine Years Empty Cabinet Owners! Then we pick up the FA Cup (not just any cup but the still-prestigious FA Cup) and all some people had to say is “it’s against Hull City”, “it’s just one cup”, “they didn’t show enough to promise more” or any of the inane variant of “we hate Arsenal and we won’t recognize them as winners” statement. Who frigging cares??!! We Won The Cup!

First, to the Gooners, how did that feel? Oh my, was it heart-attack inducing and heavenly-experience enacting at the same time! After a quite promising season where we unexpectedly started expecting the Gunners to win the Prem turned into an almost nightmare scrap for 4th place, we all thought winning the FA Cup was just going to be a “well, we tried at the end of the day” kinda feeling. How do you REALLY feel now?! I mean, we’ve been Invincible before (one and only) and that was awesome but winning a cup in the most harrowing manner possible after nine trophyless seasons turns the brain to mush. No need to be ashamed, it’s very understandable. I’m sure a lotta people partied harder than they thought they would.

It was massive in a lot of ways. First, the team can now be confident that all the narratives that label them overall as ‘perennial losers’ have been rubbished. The manager can now be sure that he will never be called a ‘specialist in failure’ any time soon (hi Jose, we just won a trophy!) Most importantly, the fans now have something to rub in the face of the taunting opposition for a while yet. We are now champions of something, and that in a season where Chelski won ZERO trophies, Liverpool won ZERO trophies and ManU got relegated from Europe. (I won’t mention Spuds ‘cos at the end of the day, they really don’t count.) How much more awesome can it be?! They can’t ridicule the cup sensibly ‘cos they all won NOTHING… ZILCH! And we all know ManCity have no real fans, so…we remain Kings among peers! Ha-ha!

Now, for those dim-wits writing on ESPNFC and other sites that are supposed to be neutral but we all now know aren’t, all of them can go and hug transformer! Lemme quote some Mode Nine here for them,

Really, it’s quite annoying. I read ESPNFC a lot. It’s like my favorite soccer site (behind ‘The Short Fuse’ and other Arsenal sites, of course) as I like to free my mind from the bias that might be on dedicated club sites. What I’ve found? Club sites even provide more objective analysis than these over-biased idiotic analysts.

What really got me this mad? Well, we just won the FA Cup (like you might have already been aware) and even though I watched the whole match, I wanted to read some analysis of what had transpired because my brain was in celebratory mood and couldn’t really do any proper processing of what was just delivered on the screen. First port of call? My favorite, ESPNFC. What did I find? John Brewin’s analysis. I actually never knew what to make of this guy since I’ve been reading some of his posts, although I had a feeling he doesn’t analyze Arsenal favorably, like lots of them there, but then Arsenal has always given itself up as an easy target for negative analysis more often than not so, yea, I never complained. But then, we just won a cup (after a nine-year drought, made more painful by the constant mention in the media) and coming from two goals down nonetheless, you would think there has to be something positive to take away. Well, not for ESPNFC’s writers apparently. All Brewin saw was a side that’s not promising enough to win any other thing in the nearest future. Yea, well, they all thought we wouldn’t make Europe this season too and see how that turned out. I just pity ManUnited fans at the moment. Brewin can kiss my black a** for all I care ‘cos, well, We Won The Cup!

Next up, Dale Johnson. Writing the now-famous ‘Three Things’ which I quite enjoy reading sometimes and they couldn’t have found a more negative writer (from an Arsenal perspective) for the match. All Dale could talk about was an Arsenal side that struggled to create anything against an excellent Hull side who somewhat deserve more than they got (translation: Arsenal do not deserve the trophy.) I laugh! I mean Hull gave a good game, and I’ll say that anywhere, but facing an Arsenal side who many agreed were not on their A-game and losing a 2-goal lead barely counts as excellent in my books. On the flipside, coming from 2-goals down when you’re not playing your best football and eventually winning the game in an exhausting 120 minutes, in a cup final, no less! Now, that’s stuff of champions! And all those who keep saying “it was against lowly Hull City” are just pointless buffoons. No one needs to be reminded of who pipped Arsenal to the cup and the last final they ever managed before this one. Neither do I need to mention a certain Wigan that beat the almighty moneybags in last season’s final and promptly got relegated (at the Emirates, mind you.) In fact, you can argue that Hull City should be ashamed that a lowlier team than them beat a better team than us in the same situation. And what’s more, they did it twice!

That takes me to Gabby Marcotti, who I actually kinda respect his general analysis, after making peace with the fact that he was never going to write about Arsenal even if we won the World Cup (if that were possible). However, I was surprised he gave us a few lines in his ‘Monday Musings’ after the FA Cup win. After a few quite mundane lines about Arsenal being consistent despite the struggle over the past trophyless period, he went ahead to downplay the importance of the win referring to the fact that we played all games either at home or at Wembley and played against two weak teams in the Semis and Final. I mean, WTF!!! Wigan just finished disgracing the eventual BPL champions on their home turf (where’s the home advantage here), I wonder who was supposed to be more afraid on a neutral ground. An Arsenal team who had the pedigree of failing when it mattered most (especially losing to teams they should be beating, according to these same people) or a Wigan team who were in high-octane mode after an epic win and, lest we forget, were defending champions. Some easy game that was supposed to be! And then a final where more than 95% of players from both teams combined don’t even know what it feels like to win a trophy with the psychological pressure on the Gunners as ‘favorites’ or more appropriately, ‘trophyless favorites’. I’d say the advantage was Hull’s to cause an upset. And then, it’s the FA Cup Final where stranger things have happened. How all these people expected this to be a walkover is beyond me. Why wouldn’t everyone celebrate wildly?! And I mean EVERYONE! Manager, players and fans! We’ve been trophyless for nine years. Every other person has reminded us of that fact every single chance they have. We were down two goals in the first ten minutes. Tell me what could be more gloriously satisfying than eventually winning the trophy under these circumstances. Honestly!

Anyway, I don’t care much for all these so-called analysts and their biased analysis. In fact, I’d preferably read a confirmed Arsenal-hater’s article than any of these guys’. My sanity was restored after reading TSF and later David Hirshey (my No.1 ESPNFC blogger by far). By the way Gooners, not all’s rotten on ESPNFC. There’s Hirshey, who is a lifelong Gooner and a verified Mourinho hater but still as objective as can be, and there’s the Arsenal blog on there too where Andrew Mangan (Arseblog owner) writes along with some others.

At the end of the day, all’s rosy at the Red half of North London and we’ve struck dead all sorts of narratives all in one game! We gave the neutrals a spectacular final and I’m sure everyone got their money’s worth in terms of drama and excitement. Fittingly, our No.1 player of the season hit the last nail in the coffin of Arsenal’s past woes. What else can I say? Good times are here again! Whether we build on this or not (though the pointers are all on the former), one thing’s for sure: